Question 1

It is known that 13% of the South African population suffers from dry eyes. A random
sample of 1200 high school students was selected from the Durban area. It was found that
6% of these students suffer from dry eyes.
Which of the following statements is true?
a) The value “6%” referred to is a parameter.
b) The sample frame and the population of interest are the same.
c) The value “13%” a statistic.
d) The sample indicates that 6% of all high school students suffer from dry eyes.
e) All the statements above are false.

Question 2
Consider the following two variables:
i) The colour of the uniforms at a restaurant.
ii) The amount of oil used for frying breakfasts at a restaurant.
Identify what kind of variable each is (continuous or discrete) and give their level of
measurement.
a) i) discrete, ordinal ii) discrete, nominal
b) i) discrete, nominal ii) continuous, ratio
c) i) continuous, ratio ii) continuous, ratio
d) i) discrete, ordinal ii) continuous, ratio
e) i) discrete, nominal ii) discrete, ratio

Question 3
Which of the following methods is most likely to give a truly random sample of the general
population of a city?
a) Selecting every individual who attended high school in that city.
b) Allocating each house in the city a unique number and using a computer to randomly
generate numbers. Then selecting the individuals in the houses that correspond to
the generated numbers.
c) Selecting every 30th individual from a list made using the telephone directory.
d) Selecting an individual from every house in a suburb of the city.
e) Allocating each individual a unique number. Then using a computer to randomly
generate numbers and selecting the individuals that correspond to the generated
numbers.
Question 4
A systematic sample of size 145 was formed by selecting every 6th item in the population.
What is the approximate size of the population from which this sample was drawn?
a) 151
b) 24
c) 870
d) 1065
e) This cannot be calculated

Questions 5 to 8 are based on the following information2

Traffic fines are frequently paid late. The frequency distribution below shows the number of
days overdue for 137 traffic fines.

Days Frequency
1 to 5 42
6 to 10 37
11 to 15 29
16 to 20 17
21 to 25 7
26 to 30 4
31 to 35 1

Question 5
What is the approximate average number of days that traffic tickets are overdue?
a) 10.3
b) 6.9
c) 68.5
d) 17.0
e) None of the above

Question 6
What shape does the data show?
a) Positively skew
b) Negatively skew
c) Bimodal
d) Uniform
e) Bell shape
Question 7
What is the approximate probability that a randomly selected traffic ticket is 1 to 15 days
overdue?
a) 0.912
b) 0.212
c) 0.577
d) 0.788
e) 0.654

Question 8
Approximately 60% of days are at least 𝑥 days overdue.
a) 𝑥 = 6.73
b) 𝑥 = 11.05
c) 𝑥 = 7.23
d) 𝑥 = 82.20
e) None of the above

Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following information:

A random sample of 12 people were asked how many hours they spent at the gym last
week. Their responses are given below:
5.5 7.2 1.6 25.0 8.7 3.8 5.3 3.5 10.5 18.6 8.3 6.6

Question 9
What is the variance of the number of hours spent in the gym last week?
a) 6.90
b) 104.6
c) 6.72
d) 11.80
e) 45.18

Question 10
The interquartile range is
a) 5.05
b) 2.5
c) 2.525
d) 6.9
e) 23.4
Question 11
Consider several data sets – Set A, Set B, Set C and Set D. Which of the following statements
is true?
a) If the coefficient of variation (CV) for Set A is 4% and the CV for Set B is 8%, then Set
A is twice as variable as Set B.
b) Set C will always be more variable than Set D if the standard deviation for Set C is
greater than that of Set D.
c) If Set A and Set D have the same CV, then they are equally variable even if they have
different means.
d) If the CV for Set B is twice that of Set C, then the standard deviation of Set B is
definitely twice that of Set C.
e) All the above statements are true.

Question 12
Seventy-two (72) Grade 2 students ran a 1-mile race. The times were recorded and the data
appeared to be bell shaped with a mean of 11 minutes and a standard deviation of 3
minutes. Sashin – one of the Grade 2 students – ran the race in 8 minutes. Approximately
how many of his classmates finished the race in a quicker time?
a) 64
b) 16
c) 60
d) 12
e) 24

Question 13
An experiment was conducted in which the time to get ready for work (minutes) was
recorded. The box plots on the following page summarize the data collected from the
women and men that took part in the experiment.

P.T.O.
Which of the following statements is false?
a) Approximately 16 men and 43 women took part in the experiment.
b) All of the men used less time than at least 75% of the women.
c) It can be deduced that men take, on average, less time than women to get ready for
work.
d) The man who got ready the fastest took over 20 minutes.
e) All of the women used more time than at least 75% of the men.

Question 14
The lengths of 60 geckos was recorded and a frequency distribution was made from the
results. The ogive below was constructed using the information from the frequency
distribution.

Less than Ogive

65
60
55
50
45
40
Frequency

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
4,5 5,5 6,5 7,5 8,5 9,5 10,5 11,5
Length (cm)
(Options for Question 14)
The longest 25% of geckos were at least 𝑥 cm long (approximately).

a) 𝑥 = 6.6
b) 𝑥 = 7.5
c) 𝑥 = 10.6
d) 𝑥 = 4.5
e) 𝑥 = 9.3

Question 15
You work for a company that runs 10 holiday resorts. Seven of the resorts are in South
Africa and the rest are in other countries. This year you will be sent to 4 resorts to check
that they are running efficiently. To choose which resorts you will go to, your manager
randomly selects four of the resorts (from a hat). What is the probability that you will be
sent to at least 2 resorts in other countries?
a) 0.333
b) 0.033
c) 0.952
d) 0.8
e) 0.5

Question 16
Suppose you have the following sample space:

𝑆 = { 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 }

Define the following events on this sample space:
𝐸 = The number is greater than 7.
𝐹 = The number is divisible by 4.
𝐺 = The number is less than 17.

Find 𝑃(𝐹̅ ∪ (𝐸 ∩ 𝐺) )
a) 0.3
b) 0.9
c) 0.5
d) 0.1
e) 0.7
Questions 17, 18 and 19 are based on the following information:
Mark is salesmen. He regularly calls his clients to let them know about new items that they
might be interested in. Each time Mark calls a client there is a 41% chance that he will make
a sale of at least R250 and there is a 27% chance that he will make a sale of at least R450.

Question 17
What is the probability that Mark makes a sale that is at least R250 and at least R450?
a) 0.14
b) 0.68
c) 0.27
d) 0.55
e) 0.82

Question 18
What is the probability that Mark makes a sale that is less than R450 but at least R250?
a) 0.27
b) 0.55
c) 0.82
d) 0.14
e) This cannot be calculated

Question 19
What are the odds against Mark making a sale of at least R450?
a) 1 : 0.69
b) 1 : 0.37
c) 1 : 1.44
d) 1 : 2.70
e) None of the above

Questions 20 and 21 are based on the following information:

A pharmaceutical company is in the final stages of testing a new drug – they are doing
human testing. They are testing whether patients using the new drug have shorter recovery
times than the current “best” drug. The 100 people (test subjects) who took part in this drug
trial were randomly split into two groups – one of the groups took the current drug and the
other group took the new drug. The recovery times for the trial are shown on the following
page.
 Current drug New drug
Under 2 weeks 16 28
2 to 4 weeks 31 18
More than 4 weeks 3 4

Question 20
If one of the test subjects is randomly selected, what is the probability that they were not
using the new drug or they took under 2 weeks to recover?
a) 0.66
b) 0.94
c) 0.22
d) 0.16
e) 0.78

Question 21
Suppose a person who took at least 2 weeks to recover is chosen. What is the probability
that the person was using the new drug?
a) 0.633
b) 0.393
c) 0.607
d) 0.367
e) None of the above

Question 22
Julia’s dog is overweight and needs to be exercised. There is a 69% chance that Julia will be
able to go to the shop this weekend to buy a harness for her dog. If she does go to the shop,
there is only a 23% chance that she will be able to find a harness that will fit her dog. What
is the probability that Julia goes to the shop this weekend and is able to find a harness for
her dog?
a) 0.33
b) 0.92
c) 0.16
d) 0.46
e) 0.24
Question 23
Suppose 𝐶 and 𝐷 are events defined on the same sample space. Further, suppose

𝑃(𝐶) = 0.8 𝑃(𝐷) = 0.5 𝑃(𝐶 ∪ 𝐷) = 0.9

Which of the following statements is true?
a) Events 𝐶 and 𝐷 are mutually exclusive.
b) Event 𝐶 is a certain event.
c) Events 𝐶 and 𝐷 are both mutually exclusive and independent.
d) The probability of the intersection of 𝐶 and 𝐷 is 0.1.
e) Events 𝐶 and 𝐷 are independent.

Question 24
Jill and Henry are friends. Jill is having a job interview at the company at which Henry works.
The probability that Henry will be chosen to be part of the interview panel is 0.8. If Henry is
not on the interview panel, the probability that Jill will get the job is 0.3. If Henry is on the
interview panel, then the probability that Jill will get the job is 0.4. If Jill gets the job, what is
the probability that Henry was on the interview panel?
a) 0.1875
b) 0.3200
c) 0.8421
d) 0.1579
e) None of the above